What one thinks to hold Is what one thinks to know, So comes of simple hope And leads one on. The others there the same With no one then to blame These flowered circles handed. So each in turn was bonded. There the yellow bees will buzz, And eyes and ears appear As listening, witnessing…
Olivia Alcuaz set down platters of spaghetti, tortillas, tomato and cucumber salad. She sat, lifted her chest as if she were in posture class, and launched into a tale about her cousin Enrique. Enrique had been driving down from Mexico when there were reports of a terrible crash involving a white car. Enrique’s car was…
New York City, August 13, 2003 All this is not unusual in DR or Iraq. The city’s extension cord shorts. Afternoon, offices evacuate. The focus is on feet, some people walking through boroughs for the first time. We stare at our feet, elbow to elbow eyeing packed buses. Some hitch rides on the back of…
translated from the Spanish by Ilan Stavans Thick, pristine beast, Saint Elephant, sacred animal of perennial forests, sheer strength, fine and balanced leather of global saddle-makers, compact, satin-finished ivory, serene like the moon’s flesh, with minuscule eyes to see—and not be seen— and a singing trunk, a blowing horn, hose of the creature rejoicing in…
In Story v. Novel, the story nearly always wins. In my opinion. I’ve written in both genres, and these days, when asked which I prefer, I say story. I like the precision of the language, the focus of the angle, the intensity placed on the moment. I like spending just that length of time, and…
The first time she could remember hearing thunder she’d been sitting on her grandma’s lap in the formal parlor of the big old house where she was visiting. She flinched and shuddered. “What’s that, Grandma?” she’d asked. “That is the voice of God,” the old woman said, and then they heard it again rolling out…
I began editing this issue of Ploughshares in the summer of 2004 shortly after my return from Chile, where I was invited, with Yusef Komunyakaa and Nathalie Handal, to participate in the celebration of the Neruda Centenary. We had entered the Republic of Poetry. Restaurants used Neruda’s odes for recipes, and proudly announced this fact…
Cohen Awards Each year, we honor the best poem and short story published in Ploughshares with the Cohen Awards, which are wholly sponsored by our longtime patrons Denise and Mel Cohen. Finalists are nominated by staff editors, and the winners—each of whom receives a cash prize of $600 —are selected by our advisory editors. The…
Mom has already made arrangements for a spot inside the churchyard wall among the old Yankee slates, some fallen, and the granites from foreign places, tilted by frost. A mason sets them straight again each spring. Perennials for the formal beds accepted with gratitude; no other plantings allowed. Cut flowers may be laid on the…
No products in the cart.